Hasta La Ideas

An interesting study coming out of Notre Dame‘s Department of Psychology. Investigating how architecture can affect one’s cognitive map to help them navigate and identify their surroundings, Professor Laura Carlson has published the report, “Getting Lost in Buildings,” in the journal Current Direction in Psychological Science. In it, she and her co-authors talk about how people use both a building’s features (symmetry of hallways, distances between doorways, etc.) or objects within the building (landmarks like tables or posters on walls, etc.) to function within an enclosed space. Particularly interesting to us was that they call out Rem Koolhaas‘ celebrated Seattle Central Library, which they claim is beautiful but difficult for people to operate in: “People expect floors to have similar layouts, but the first five levels of the library are all different; even the outside walls don’t necessarily line up. Normally, lines of sight help people get around, but the library has long escalators that skip over levels, making it hard to see where they go.” Unfortunately, the report itself is behind a fairly pricey pay wall, so you’ll either have to fork over that $35 to read it all or just pick up what you can in the short synopsis. Or watch the video the university put together (see below). Whatever the case, interesting to think about the relation between psychology and architecture, particularly when it involves flashy starchitect designs.

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Argentinian architects Adamo-Faiden have completed a club house in the middle of a lake near Buenos Aires.

Containing a gym, spa and bar, the pill-shaped structure is connected to the shore by a semi-circular walkway.

The mosaic-clad club house serves a gated community called La Cándida, where the architects have already built a community centre. See our previous story.

Photographs are by Cristobal Palma.

See all our stories on Adamo-Faiden »

Here’s some more information from the architects:

La Cándida is a gated community built at the border of a route that links Buenos Aires to the seaside resorts of the Atlantic coast.

The property is axially aligned with an artificial lake, a semicircular portion of land at its extreme west became the area of intervention.

Confronting these conditions the project proposes two simultaneous actions: the augmentation of the lake and the construction of a pavilion isolated in its interior.

The two actions intend to invert the inertia of each element in order to become fused with the emergence of an experience specific to this new scenery.

Alongside the programs that configure the building – gym, bar and spa – the club house has an integrating vocation that aspires to dissolve the limits of its prints, inviting each individual to increase their relationships where it seems impossible to do so.

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Community Centre of La Candida by Adamo-Faiden	Conesa 4560 by Adamo-Faiden	More architecture on Dezeen

Architects Teka Studio have converted an old tannery store house in Bergamo, Italy into a family home.

The three-storey building now features a free-standing wine cellar on the ground floor (above) and an indoor swimming pool on the top floor (below).

The bathroom is located on the ground floor and looks out, through a glazed wall, onto a little courtyard.

The living spaces are on the first floor.

A corten steel staircase links the ground and first floors.

Photographs are by Luca Santiago Mora.

Here’s some more information about the project:

“Interior Day” renovation of a productive area

Space
Simple volumes of different shapes placed on top of one another and linked in such a way as to create a subtle effect of interconnections, amid itineraries of light, recurrent geometries and points of emphasis.

This interior design was conceived for a three-storey building, formerly the storerooms of an old tannery in the north-east of Bergamo, to be converted into a home, characterized by the presence of industrial activity which has now been completely abandoned.

On the ground floor, the square floor plan was divided by concrete pillars into three bays of different widths. The service rooms are located here and defined by elements of a lower height with respect to the area accommodating them, to reveal the industrial character of the pre-existing space.

The cellar is exemplary and visually the strongest element, a real “container”: its iron cage supports two horizontal wooden surfaces and takes on the shape of inner shelves, closed off by ruby red panes of glass. The wooden latticework, which screens the panes of glass to avoid the effect of the light on the bottles, reinforces the alien character of this pulsating structure, parked at the bottom of the house.

A long cor-ten staircase leads from here to the first floor, to be used as the living area and connected by another staircase to the second floor where there are the bedrooms and the swimming pool. Both floors are defined by an L-shaped floor plan: in the long arm (40m x 10m) there is a simple row of pillars , the short one (14m x 3m) forms a single bay.

To underline the unbalanced ratio between length and width characterizing these spaces, a narrow opening has been made – corresponding both to the roof and the inter-floor gap. This aperture conveys light to the first floor, where the relationship of light with the exterior is also marked by a long (35 metres) cor-ten window.

Thanks to the presence of slits, holes and long perspectives, these spaces can be perceived in a continuous succession, connected in a narrative route with a good rhythm. This aspect is particularly evident in the shorter arm of the L, where the spaces, on both the first and second floors, are to be mono-functional. The ceiling of the formal dining room is also the bottom of the swimming pool: its portholes look on to the long highly polished black table, plunging the dining room into the atmosphere of the upper floor and anticipating it in a suspended discourse of reflections and light.

Light
The theme-issue of light is a separate chapter in the development of this project: solutions that are never predictable were used to get round substantial obstacles: the building overlooks, unfortunately, the roofs of the surrounding buildings or the back of the nearby apartment blocks, which are all very high and completely blind.

Exploiting light from above to the full by creating original paths to take it through the whole architecture is the central passage in an operation which guaranteed different luminous effects, giving the home a real variety of atmospheres, dimensions and suspensions. In two cases, the light comes from above into the glass parallelepipeds of the skylight wells, pierces the house through its floors and enters it together with a portion of the external space, with its plants and its seasons.

In another case, “informed” by portholes and coloured by metres of water, the swimming pool expands softly and densely into the dining-room below. Lastly, again from above, it works itself into the narrow slit corresponding to the roof and the inter-floor gap, slides along the walls and is released to be diffused on the first floor.

Regarding the access of the light from the side walls as well, despite the difficult position of the building, in some cases the indoor/outdoor relation has been designed with effective and specific solutions. On the first floor, for example, a long cor-ten window allows selecting the views and evokes the delightful image of landscapes impressed upon old photographic. On the bottom wall of the swimming pool, a large cone is directed outwards, defining with its black and enclosing frame, a portion of greenery and the blurred and iridescent light that can come from it.

Matter

On the second floor, in the bedroom area, three large cubes mark the space of the long corridor which leads to the bedrooms. Two are made of leather, one covered with the shiny side and the other with the darker and iridescent “back” of the leather, almost as though it were pigment.

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These are the most obvious signs of a discourse on matter which runs through the whole house, in a continuous reference to the once active and bustling world of work – craft and industrial production – in the area where the building stands.

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If leather is a clear reference to what the building, a former tannery, was first used for, the interior is characterized throughout by an eclectic and honest unadorned use of matter. Stone, iron, concrete, wood, glass, felt and leather are used in such a way to make their natural essence felt amidst the things of the house and to highlight that they are raw materials, in reference to the world of work.

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Sometimes this is done through successful contrasts, in lively dialogues between the materials and in unusual pairings. The best example is the formal dining room, which brings together very different surfaces and colours: the floor of Taxos, a Greek marble of a miraculous white, faces the exposed concrete that dominates it from the ceiling, whilst a lacquered table captures their interaction perfectly, reflecting it. The yellow, studded with travertine on the threshold of this scene, and the green of the soft light from the ceiling with the portholes, complete it, effectively highlighting the essence of every material.

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House by BeL Associates	Apprentice Store by Threefold Architects	More interiors on Dezeen

Foster + Partners have unveiled designs for a museum on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi.

The Zayed National Mueum will feature five lightweight steel towers resembling birds’ wings, set within a landscaped mound with gallery spaces located at ground level.

The latticed towers will be designed to act as thermal chimneys that will draw cool air into the spaces below, whilst cooling pipes buried beneath will release fresh air into the lobby.

Named after UAE founder Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the museum will be dedicated to the history and culture of the country.

The museum is the latest superstar-designed building to be unveiled for Saadiyat Island cultural district; a performing arts centre by Zaha Hadid, a Guggenheim by Frank Gehry, a branch of the Louvre museum by Jean Nouvel and a maritime museum by Tadao Ando are already underway.

See the Masdar Institute by Foster which was opened in Abu Dhabi two days ago in our earlier story.

The following information is from Foster + Partners:

Designs for Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi revealed

Designs for the Zayed National Museum have been officially unveiled today by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. Conceived as a monument and memorial to the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the founding president of the UAE, the Museum will be the centrepiece of the Saadiyat Island Cultural District and will showcase the history, culture and more recently the social and economic transformation of the Emirates.

Architecturally, the aim has been to combine a highly efficient, contemporary form with elements of traditional Arabic design and hospitality to create a museum that is sustainable, welcoming and culturally of its place. Celebrating Sheikh Zayed’s legacy and love of nature, the museum is set within a landscaped garden, based on a timeline of his life.

The display spaces are housed within a man-made, landscaped mound. The galleries are placed at the bases of five solar thermal towers. The towers heat up and act as thermal chimneys to draw cooling air currents naturally through the museum. Fresh air is captured at low level and drawn through buried ground-cooling pipes and then released into the museum’s lobby. The heat at the top of the towers works to draw the air up vertically through the galleries due to the thermal stack effect. Air vents open at the top of the wing-shaped towers taking advantage of the negative pressure on the lee of the wing profile to draw the hot air out.

Here in the museum these towers are lightweight steel structures, sculpted aerodynamically to work like the feathers of a bird’s wing.  The analogies with falcons and flight are deliberate and relate directly to Sheikh Zayed’s love of falconry. This theme is further celebrated by a gallery devoted to the subject as part of a wider focus on conservation. These inner spaces open up to an outdoor arena for live displays with hunting birds.

Balancing the lightweight steel structures with a more monumental interior experience, the galleries are anchored by a dramatic top-lit central lobby, which is dug into the earth to exploit its thermal properties and brings together shops, cafes, an auditorium and informal venues for performances of poetry and dance. Throughout, the treatment of light and shade draws on a tradition of discreet, carefully positioned openings, which capture and direct the region’s intense sunlight to illuminate and animate these interior spaces. Objects are displayed within niches and on stone plinths that rise seamlessly from the floor.
The museum contains a variety of performance spaces. A large auditorium, lined with Emirati textiles, provides an evocative setting for presentations and films. The lobby incorporates more informal venues for poetry readings, music and dance, where the audience can gather in a circle to enjoy the spectacle and atmosphere of traditional performances.

The interior concept for the restaurant draws on the opulence and hospitality of the Bedouin tent, with carefully selected furnishings. The majlis, or VIP spaces, open onto a central courtyard. This traditional space offers guests a unique perspective, as it is the only place in the museum where one can enjoy views of the wind towers.

Lord Foster said: “It has been a great privilege to work on the Zayed National Museum, to carry forward Sheikh Zayed’s vision and to communicate the dynamic character of a contemporary United Arab Emirates. We have sought to establish a building that will be an exemplar of sustainable design, resonating with Sheikh Zayed’s love of nature and his wider heritage.”

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Gehry, Nouvel, Ando, Hadid build in Abu Dhabi	Jean Nouvel in Abu Dhabi	Zaha Hadid in Abu Dhabi

Architectural photographer Fernando Guerra has sent us some images of a house and studio in Oporto, Portugal that architect Álvaro Siza Álvaro Leite Siza designed and built for himself.

The house was completed earlier this summer by Siza.

Siza spent 12 years assembling the site, designing the house and building it.

The long, narrow, rectilinear ground level is capped by an oversailing, faceted white carapace.

Photographs are by Fernando & Sérgio Guerra.

Siza is the son of Pritzker-prize winning architect Álvaro Siza.

More photography stories »

The following statement is from Siza:

To do architecture it’s necessary a client, a promoter. When I realized, in certain moment of my career that to continue my path I would need to occupy that role too, I didn’t hesitate.

Was needed a lot of courage.

I conciliated objectives, interests, goals, I pursued an ideal and I achieved a dream.

I also had the need to be, in this work, supervisor, coordinator and project director, in an organization in direct administration.

I started this work in 2004 and I finished it in early of 2005. The construction begins in February of 2006 and was concluded in July of 2010.

The project of personal house-atelier is the first where is present touching figures in their own atmosphere, exalting pieces, personalities that derive from history, versus the sensibility, recreating individually realities, with no intention previously defined.

They appear in the middle of delivery to ones believe beyond what we need (specific program and functional), sublimation underlying to authentic communication of the creative process.

When the modern is old, a pass appears in the most eloquent and distant expression.

The affirmation of a new Romantism, of a Classic Renaissance, came directly of the origins, with the interior load not less important.

The home like laboratory of ones dream that represent the drives, ideas, tensions and strength behind de matter.

The stories and its emotions that condense the symbolism that represent. The figures and humans relations.

In this project, borned from free drawings of harlequin – laughing about the problems, the tensions, the conflicts, the mismatches, between other dramas that surround this activity – that transforms in a geometric abstraction, where there’s no place for frames or glasses, I rehearse the affirmation of a new Classicism.

Transitional spaces, the porticos, the lamps, the light, the doorknobs, the doors, the hand rails, even some paintings and the furniture was designed for me, but also other of XIX century (timeless pieces) that came from my family that fit the environment perfectly, beyond other elements, complement the creation of environments that exalt Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci, Miguel Angelo and surrounded by a lot of extraordinary Art works, that aren’t limited to the atmosphere of purely imaginary architectural.

The conclusion of this ideal was possible due to a personal characteristic of obstinated stubbornness and dissatisfaction non less expressive.

It’s started 12 years ago, with an acquisition of a lot without access to the street and for that a lot more financially favourable.

In the next 6 years I tried to find a connection that would make this possible.

I was lucky that a promoter of one unoccupied lot was a direct cousin of my mother that finally would sell it to me.

I was forced to buy another lot next to this one to make the business feasible, that I sold with a personal approved project.

In this way, I capitalized, investing all the money in this business.

During the necessary operation of regrouping of the lands, appears the project, result of one discourse of paradoxical intentions.

Home/Atelier; Interior area/Exterior area; Social area/ Cultural area; Private/Public; Leisure/work.

Their volumetry organized themselves by vertical and horizontal sections.

One programme built by one atelier facing to the street, garages and service areas working with a hinge and finally the House related with the garden.

One of underground storey corresponds to the foundations, another ground storey in granite, corresponding to the public and social areas, and even the top storey.

If In one hand, the ground floor expressed them self of inside to outside, of the intimacy to the exterior in an explosive manifesting, creating the necessary openings, the porticos of transition and the respective skylights of natural light; for other hand, the upper storey implode.

The aggression of exterior create symbolic tensions, pressures that recognize themselves of outside to inside, reducing their volumetry, giving rise to one figurative image.

Through a geometric rigorous abstraction to make possible the constructive system, built by lozenges associated in different angles that confer higher tridimensionality, I found the proportion that I wanted, the horizontality I wished, the orientation predefined, the objectified and determined direction.

The symbolism of the figure that sublime the oppression of one system.

Álvaro Leite Siza Vieira
Porto, Julho de 2010

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Selected projects by Álvaro Siza	Casa Orquidea by Andrés Remy Architects	More photography stories on Dezeen